Founded in 1958 by the late Bill Putnam Sr., Universal Audio was a natural extension of his success as a recording engineer, studio designer, and inventor. Putnam was a favorite engineer of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and many other music icons of the time. In 2000, Putnam Sr. was awarded the Technical Achievement Grammy in praise of his multiple contributions to the recording industry, including the first use of artificial reverberation, effects sends, and the vocal booth, not to mention the legendary studios he designed which are still in operation to this day.
Putnam started three audio product companies during his career: Universal Audio, Studio Electronics, and UREI. All three built products that remain widely used decades after their introduction, including the ubiquitous LA-2A and 1176 compressors, and the 610 tube mic preamp and EQ, used to record everyone from Sinatra to the Beach Boys to Van Halen.
In 1999, Bill Putnam Jr. and James Putnam re-launched Universal Audio and merged with Kind of Loud Technologies — a leading audio software company

Based in Montebello, CA, TASCAM has been leading the recording market with innovation since the 1970's. They pioneered home recording and made multitracking affordable for musicians who had more talent than money. Tascam makes recording and playback products for music, professional audio, broadcast and film.

Apogee Electronics is an award-winning manufacturer of digital audio recording equipment, delivering the advanced and best-sounding products to its customers since 1985. Apogee products are used in some of the most prestigious recording studios around the world

Based just outside of London, the Focusrite brand was established way back in 1985 and the founding principles of the company were to develop products that sounded more musical, in addition to just measuring well. Today, they still carry these founding principles.

RME is a young German team of developers with a robust vision of creating innovative, user friendly, and high-quality digital audio solutions for less money. Founded in 1996, RME quickly earned their stripes as a premiere industry provider, expanding rapidly into mainstream international markets.
Each developer on the RME team is either a musician or sound engineer - besides being a specialist in hardware and software development. Additionally, to give their designs a persistent competitive edge in today's market, RME developers regularly network with other industry specialists to exchange knowledge and information - truly designing a line of products with superior quality, and affordable, mass-market appeal.
Products include Digital audio cards, AD/DA converters